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Slashdot Asks: How Long Before Self-Driving Cars Become Mainstream?

Posted by msmash on from the curious-case-of-self-driving-cars dept.

Here's the thing, regardless of one's stand on self-driving cars, they are no longer a futuristic idea. Major car companies such as Tesla, BMW, and Mercedes have already released an autonomous vehicle or plan to release one soon. Sergio Marchionne, an Italian-Canadian executive who is currently the CEO of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, recently said: It isn't pie in the sky. People are talking about 20 years. I think we will have it in five years. ZDNet has published its interview of Jim McBride, technical leader in Ford's autonomous vehicles team, who thinks self-driving cars are five years away from changing the world. At the same time, we must acknowledge the talks about these smart vehicles killing many jobs, and the security vulnerabilities we read every once in a while. What's your take on this?

4 of 381 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Of course by dpidcoe · · Score: 4, Funny

    Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/678/

  2. Re:While we are at it by Sperbels · · Score: 3, Funny

    Funny, I have the same combination on my luggage.

  3. Re:Wha' happen!? To the NASA story? by sims+2 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Are we actually trying to keep dupes off the front page now? Wow times they are a changin.

    Thanks for letting us know.

    --
    Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
  4. Re:Relevance of Italian-Canadian? by clovis · · Score: 4, Funny

    > Sergio Marchionne, an Italian-Canadian executive who is currently the CEO

    I don't see any relevance at all to mentioning Marchionne's nationalities.
    Particularly when there's no mention of nationality for the second person mentioned:

    > Jim McBride, technical leader in Ford's autonomous vehicles team

    I often wonder why they do that. To me, it's an annoying interruption to the flow of the story.

    And piling on ... they didn't say which parent was the Canadian or the Italian (although the name is a clue), and whether or not it was the immediate parents for a 50-50 genetic split, or if it was just a single male great-grandparent that was Italian.
    If they're going to tell us he's Italian-Canadian, then why wouldn't they tell us which nationality donated the Y chromosome, and who donated the mitochondria? Without that knowledge, it's just pointless to say "Italian-Canadian".

    Furthermore, there's cultural issues at stake.
    If the mother was Canadian and the father Italian, then who did the cooking? Is it possible that Sergio had an Italian parent and was raised on Canadian food? If so, how would that affect his outlook on life? If that happened to me, I would be angry all the time.
    Are we supposed to infer that as a Italian-Canadian he waves only one of his hands when he speaks?

    Or it's possible that Starless is correct, and that the nationality is irrelevant.